Frank Chapman (ornithologist)
| Frank Chapman | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Frank Michler Chapman June 12, 1864 West Englewood, New Jersey |
| Died | November 15, 1945 (aged 81) New York City |
| Nationality | US |
| Fields | Ornithology |
| Institutions | American Museum of Natural History |
| Known for | Audubon Christmas Bird Count |
| Notable awards |
Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1917) John Burroughs Medal (1929) |
Frank Michler Chapman (June 12, 1864 – November 15, 1945) was a U.S. ornithologist and pioneering writer of field guides.
Chapman was born in West Englewood, New Jersey and attended Englewood Academy. He joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in 1888 as assistant to Joel Asaph Allen. In 1901 he was made associate Curator of Mammals and Birds and in 1908 Curator of Birds.
Chapman came up with the original idea for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. He also wrote many ornithological books such as, Bird Life, Birds of Eastern North America, Bird Studies With a Camera, and Life in an Air Castle. For his work, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia, he was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1917.
In the winter seasons, starting from his mother's home in Gainesville, Florida, he made numerous field trips to collect small mammals and birds; thus he went to various localities in Florida, Texas, Cuba, Trinidad, B. W. I., Yucatan and Vera Cruz, Mexico, and later to many countries in South America. The story of his local expeditions in the United States and of his one visit to England is told in his Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist (1908) and much later his many expeditions to Mexico, Central and South America are dealt with in his all too brief, authentic Autobiography of a Bird Lover (1933).
Chapman fathered one child, Frank Chapman, Jr., who first married playwright Elizabeth Cobb and had a daughter, actress and TV personality Buff Cobb, and after divorcing married mezzo-soprano opera singer Gladys Swarthout.
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